


To Return

by thesearchforbluejello



Series: Rogue Oneshots [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I coughed this up because apparently it's rebelcaptain week, I guess because I wrote it so, just assume everyone else is alive even if they're not mentioned, unbeta'ed because like I said I coughed it up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 02:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15233766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesearchforbluejello/pseuds/thesearchforbluejello
Summary: After a mission goes wrong, Cassian comes back for Jyn.





	To Return

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently it's rebelcaptain week, and today's prompt was trust. Like the tags say, this is unbeta'ed because I had minimal time, so drop me a line if you find an error.

When K finally manages to open the door, Cassian slips through as soon as it's wide enough for his body. In the dark of the cell, he can barely distinguish the shape on the floor from the shadows cloying around her.

"Jyn," he breathes, because it must be her, he knows it's her, small and fragile and entirely unmoving on the duracrete floor. He hesitates for a moment, just a moment, something frightened and wary clawing at his stomach before he rushes forward, hand still tight on the grip of his blaster. The slice of light burning its way across the cold floor glints in her half lidded eyes for a moment as he drops to one knee beside her. "Jyn," he says again, because words are failing him in the wake of his immense relief that she's even still alive. "We came back; we came to get you," he says, the words rushing out, not at all what he wants to say, but what he must say.

She huffs a breath he almost can't hear. "That's what you've said every time," she says, the words slurred and dull, hardly more than a breath against the floor.

It takes a moment for those words to sink in, but when they do an icy feeling seeps through his chest like she's slipped a blade between his ribs. "I'm really here this time. I'm here," he says again, brushing her lank hair from her face, fingertips skimming her forehead. "We need to go, okay? The alarms are going to go off any minute."

"Jus' leave me 'lone," she says to the floor, her accent all round, bleeding vowels and weak consonants.

He's not sure if he's more concerned about hurting her or being injured by her if she lashes out, but while his mind is stumbling through the consideration of which of his two bad options he should pursue, the alarms go off. 

"Time is up," K says from the hallway.

Cassian bites back an explicit retort that he knows would only encourage K to annoy him further by pointing out everything anatomically impossible with that command. He rolls Jyn onto her back as gently as he can; she might as well be a bedroll for all the resistance she gives him. "We've got to go," he says.

"Just leave her if she doesn't want to come," K says, sounding as deliberately bored as a droid can.

"K," Cassian says as he struggles to pick Jyn up while keeping ahold of his blaster with one hand, "do all of us a favor and shut the fuck up."

Jyn makes a noise against his neck that he at first thinks is her choking, but then realizes is faint laughter. "You haven't said that before," she says.

"You make him impatient," K says imperiously.

"Yes," Cassian says, following K quickly down the hallway, "it has nothing to do with the alarms." Or the fact that the skin of Jyn's forehead is like ice against his neck. 

Jyn barely notices the grip of Cassian's blaster digging into her shoulder, his fingers gripping her thigh just a little too tightly as he carries her. The alarms sound far away, the shrill ringing muted as though with distance. She tries to wade through the muddy mess of her mind to dredge up some vague recollection of how she ended up here. The past few days, or hours, or weeks, are an unsalvageable mess in her memory, a blurry, discordant cacophony of confusion. They'd been on a mission-- that much she's sure of. She remembers a chair, and needles, and an ice that burned its way through her veins. A hazy face she can't scrap together, and a voice she can't recall. Questions, somewhere in there, all mixed up, about rebels and ships and sabotage and Cassian. 

Cassian.

They'd asked about him, her accomplice in whatever they'd been doing that her muddied mind can't quite piece back together. She'd seen him come to get her, entering her cell over and over, but every time he faded away and the only people who came for her were the ones who wanted her to tell them things she'd die to protect.

She tells herself that this must be real now, because she can feel his chest rising and falling against her as he breathes, hear his boots against the duracrete as he runs, K's heavy steps beside them. She can smell him, warm and startlingly real, all sweat and Alliance-issue soap and blaster discharge. It's unbearably familiar and she struggles to keep her eyes open.

The whole building shudders around them and Cassian almost drops her. His grip shifts unwillingly so he's barely holding onto her, one hand still gripping the fabric of her trousers with white knuckles, his other arm keeping her awkwardly pinned to his chest where she'd slipped in his hold, years of training prioritizing his desperate grip on his blaster.

"It seems the distraction has not gone to plan," K says.

"We need to override the lockdown," Cassian says. "Or we won't be able to get out."

"There is an access point to the operational mainframe two corridors from here," K says. "It will be guarded."

"No kidding." 

K looks pointedly at the precarious grip Cassian has on Jyn. "With you carrying her, our chance of survival is seventeen percent. With me carrying her, it is twenty-one percent. We should leave her."

Cassian gives him look that even his advanced processing capabilities struggle to parse. "You're right." 

K stops in the middle of the hallway. "I had concluded a five percent change of you agreeing with me."

"Find somewhere we can hide her," Cassian snaps. "A closet or something. Somewhere they won't look."

K finds a storage closet halfway down the hall, shelving three walls piled with bottles and boxes, hardly enough room to lay Jyn on the floor. Cassian shakes her shoulder to rouse her, persistent until her eyes crack open just enough to reveal a slit of pale green, dull with exhaustion.

"We're coming back, okay? We have to disable to door locks. And then we'll be back." Her brow furrows like she doesn't understand. She sets a palm to the floor, but that's as much effort as she can muster towards getting to her feet. Cassian brushes her hair from her face again. "Do you trust me to come back?"

"Yes," she whispers.

"Then stay here," he says, even though he knows there's no chance of her going anywhere on her own. He shrugs off his coat, laying it over her like a blanket. She closes her eyes as they shut the door, choking off the light but for a sliver beneath the door.

Dimly, she hears blaster fire.

***

She wakes up once as they're running from the building, the metal of K's chassis warm against her cheek as she's jostled in his hold.

She wakes up again on the floor of the ship as they break atmo. There are blankets beneath her and wrapped around her, the tickle of fur on her face telling her that she's been bundled in Cassian's jacket. Warm fingers against her hand. 

She opens her eyes and Cassian's there, just like she trusted he would be. It's an unfamiliar feeling, and it burns in her chest like the echo of something half-remembered. He looks at her with a smile that's part relieved and part exhausted and solely, entirely for her. She tries to smile back, but it's too much of a strain. So she shuts her eyes and listens to the hum of the ship change as they make the jump into hyperspace. She lets herself fall into the feeling of Cassian's fingers tracing patterns against her skin.

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of a late update: in the spirit of a fun rebelcaptain week, I've decided to add song suggestions to each one shot. If you're like me and am always on the lookout for new music, check them out! The two recs for this piece are Waves by Dotan and Long & Lost by Florence + The Machine.


End file.
